Amalthus
Amalthus (Japanese: , Marubēni) is a character in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. He is the Praetor of Indol. He is extremely old, and is the Driver of Fan la Norne and Cole. He is also the Driver of Malos, making him the Driver of an Aegis. Story When Amalthus was a child, he and his mother were forced to flee from a group of men. His mother, rather than leave him in the hands of the men chasing them, pushed him down a steep hill where they would not search for him. He awoke and stumbled through the woods until he came to the mens' camp, where he found his mother's dead body. Devastated and enraged, he used a rock to kill the men as they slept. Years later, Amalthus traveled around Alrest, helping refugees and spreading his own philosophies that would later become the teachings of Indol. At one point, he found a soldier he had helped heal robbing a home; the soldier had killed one person, and was about to kill another when Amalthus intervened, killing the soldier and rescuing the baby that was in the house. The event left him wondering if the world was truly as the Architect had intended for it to be. Eventually, Amalthus became the first person to climb the World Tree; he managed to reach Elysium, where he found it empty. He took the Core Crystals of Malos and Mythra and returned to Alrest, where he awoke Malos. Believing it was the Architect's will, he used Malos' power to decimate the Kingdom of Torna; however, Malos regained full control of his powers, allowing him to leave Amalthus and destroy the rest of humanity. Knowing he could not control either of the Aegises, Amalthus decided to find someone who could use the other core and send them after Malos. Eventually, Addam was able to wield Mythra, and they fought against Malos in the Aegis War. Malos was defeated, and eventually Amalthus became the Praetor of the Indoline Praetorium. He began to gather all the Core Crystals that he could, making it illegal for Drivers to be unregistered with the Praetorium. At some point, Amalthus used refugees from Torna to create Blade Eaters, by fusing children with Core Crystals. Two of these refugees were Mikhail and Paroka, who survived when the others were all eliminated. Five centuries after the war, the Aegis is reawakened thanks to the new Torna. Amalthus finds Pandoria and a nearly-dead Zeke, and takes them in. He is able to save Zeke by transferring a portion of Pandoria's Core Crystal into his body, making him a Blade Eater, and allows him to become the special envoy for Indol, to seek out the new Driver of the Aegis and bring him or her back to Indol. Amalthus has Indol outfitted with weaponry similar to that of Temperantia, and is able to fly the Titan to the World Tree in order to destroy Jin and Malos. He sends Indoline warrior monks to the tree to order Rex and Pyra to use the power of the Aegis to destroy the Tornan warship, but they refuse. After their defeat, Amalthus projects a hologram of himself to speak with the party directly, revealing that he had taken the other half of Fan la Norne's Core Crystal, making him able to use her power to weaken Blades and Titans. He then forces Mythra to summon Siren's power to destroy the Tornan warship, declaring himself the Master Driver of the Master Blade, with the power to control every Blade, and Titan, in existence. With the help of his friends, however, Rex is able to break his control over them and continue up the tree. In desperation at not getting the Aegis under his control, he causes several Titans, including Mor Ardain, Uraya, and Genbu, to release their ether energy at the World Tree, intent on destroying it and all of Alrest. With the help of Poppi α, Rex and Mythra are able to get close enough to destroy Amalthus' amplification towers on Indol with Siren. In anger, he shoots a massive energy blast at them, only to have it blocked by the mech form of the Monoceros, piloted by Mikhail. Mikhail heroically sacrifices himself in a massive explosion that sinks Indol, allowing the party to continue after Jin and Malos; however, Amalthus survives and is able to use all of the Core Crystals that he had "cleansed" over the centuries to grant himself immense power. He intercepts the party inside the World Tree after they have defeated Jin and kills Patroka, claiming his motivations for erasing all of the worthless things in existence to be the Architect's will. The party challenges this, and he eventually admits that he is afraid of change, fearing that if he changes, he will not be his true self anymore. Enraged over the idea of humans and Blades having bonds of friendship, he kills Akhos by tearing out his Core Crystal, and fights the party. Still intent on meeting the Architect and erasing everything in the world himself after his defeat, he sends out his tendrils of energy to try and destroy the World Tree from the inside. Telling Rex to stop Malos, Jin releases all the power he has left, freezing Amalthus to the back wall. As he dies, he sees a vision of his mother coming down in a beam of light to greet him, and he fades out of existence. Gallery XC2-Amalthus-Artwork.png|Amalthus XC2-Amalthus-work.jpg|Amalthus artwork XC2-Amalthus-2.png Category:XC2 Characters Category:XC2 Male Characters Category:Indoline Category:Drivers